Student suicides not connected with results: Telangana Inter Board

In a shocking revelation which has made students, parents and citizens red-faced over the suicides of Inter students due to results goof-up by the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education, the Board has now said that “there were no major errors in evaluation process.” Nearly 22 students ended their lives as a consequence of the results fiasco in Telangana.

“The Board got all the scripts of suicide candidates and got it re-verified by the subject experts by forming a committee and checked for any errors either in valuing of the answer sheets, posting of marks or for totalling mistakes. In all the cases, the Board found that there no major errors which would change the marks of the students from fail to pass,” the statement from the Board said.

According to the Board, the re-verification committee said that a total of 53 answer scripts of failed students who committed/attempted suicide were re-verified by the selected regular lecturers of respective subjects. “It was observed that there was no remarkable change in the result of the students after re-verifying. Failed subjects remained failed after re-verification too. On analysis, it was found that out of 25, 10 have failed in one subject, 12 students have failed in more than one subject, three despite passing the examination have committed suicide. In total, 22 have committed suicide and 3 have attempted suicide,” it added.

Unfortunately, the Board was quick to point out ‘peculiar cases’ which puts the blame on students for committing suicide. “In a peculiar case, a student has committed suicide even after scoring around 85 per cent and getting A grade. In one, case a student committed suicide after writing third paper thinking that she would fail while in fact, she passed in all the three subjects she attempted. So, the Board feels that in-depth analysis of these cases should be done by an expert committee and steps will be taken based on the report to avoid future cases of suicide,’’ the Board stated.

It added that “none of the students have failed due to the error as errors were rectified immediately after declaration of results. The failure is purely on the basis of students’ poor academic performance in the exams in a few subjects. There is no major deviation in pass percentage compared to previous years. The suicides have no relation to mistakes due to technical and result processing efforts.”